Awards & Recognition

Room Bookings

Coco Chanel

Charts the rise of one of the most influential designers of the 20th century. From her humble childhood and early days as a young dressmaker's assistant, to her passionate love affair with a dashing Englishman and ultimate success as a pioneering fashion icon.

A pleasure to watch. Good acting and lovely clothes. The story moves back and forth between Coco's older years (when she is trying to make a comeback) and her younger years (when she is just getting started).

This made-for-TV biopic is a long, drawn-out slap in the face of one of history’s most innovative & influential clothing designers. My points of objection include disappointing visuals (e.g., too many drab camera close-ups on trivial accessories); too many simplistic lectures from The History of Costume 101; and the fatal miscasting of Shirley MacLaine, who misrepresents Chanel in her later years as a charmless, Americanized, frumpy old bag. It treats her early love affairs as tritely as her clothing, spewing forth every cliché in the book concerning Europe’s minor aristocracy & allowing a single promising scene involving a tango for three to fall flat on its face dramatically. Despite my passion for fashion—no, correction: because of it—both I & a more cinema-savvy friend opted to fast-forward through much of this insipid timewaster.

Good – Coco Chanel (2008) 139 min. This is an interesting made-for-television depiction of legendary fashion designer Gabrielle “Coco” Chanel. The film was released on Lifetime Television. The wonderful Shirley MacLaine plays the elder Coco while Barbora Bobulova plays the younger. Though the acting may at times seem wooden and the choice to play Coco’s love of her life (Boy Capel played by Olivier Sitruk) may not have been my first choice, the film does educate in a most enjoyable way taking Coco from her mother’s death to her resurgence as a fashion icon later in life. The one thing that struck me in the life of Chanel was that she opened up her heart to fashion but kept it closed to committing to serious relationships because of past hurts. This film will reveal, among loads of other trivia, Coco’s first fashion apparel and how Chanel No. 5 came to be. I hope that OPL orders the French film that was released in 2009 titled “Coco Avant Chanel” with Audrey Toutou playing Chanel.